


The Heart Cannot Lie

by Ukthxbye



Series: drabbles and prompts [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autopsies, Awesome Molly Hooper, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, Mind Palace, One Shot, POV Sherlock Holmes, Romantic Fluff, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock Holmes Is Bad At Flirting, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Kissing, St Bartholomew's Hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 19:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukthxbye/pseuds/Ukthxbye
Summary: Sherlock's own mind betrayed him, allowing his feelings to spill forth through inadvertent flirting. Molly called him out on it but what was the result?





	The Heart Cannot Lie

 “She’s a witch, maybe?” Molly glanced up over a woman’s body at Sherlock and continued, “at least this tattoo would indicate so.”

 

Sherlock frowned as he came around to study said tattoo, a detailed pentagram with flowers and vines, a modern pagan likely.

 

“Yes... well that tattoo is in a more intimate placement there on her lower left hip so I would not have seen it at the crime scene. But yes, that narrows the search to a possible local coven,” he spilled out quickly.

 

“I almost got a tattoo there once,” Molly mused out loud, and glancing up Sherlock as she smirked, “I might still.”

 

“I’d very much like to see that,” he smirked in return but his face fell. Realisation struck him a breath too late. Her open mouth and playful eyes showed for too many times today he flirted without thinking about it. He kept the tally, and he recognised his limit of plausible deniability reached its margin.  Caught red-handed quite literally as they paused in their study of the victim.

 

Pivoting on her heels to step around the table, she stood in front of him arms folded across her smock.

 

“Fives times,” she said matter-of-factually, seeking his eyes which he averted.

 

“Five? My count was four,” he huffed but his jaw dropped in awareness a moment later.

 

A sudden panic flashed across his face, his jaw tightening as he considered first about being correct instead of protecting himself.

 

“It’s not something awful at all,” she smiled softly.

 

“But it is not professional,” he scoffed half-heartedly.

 

Eyes rolling, she laughed, “So what.”

 

All control here tallied on her side, and her composure exposed his discomfort on the subject. Advantages he claimed in other moments when duplicity applied to meet an end, forfeited with Molly. No leverage to be gained. No desire to lie present, but the want of escape rang like an alarm in his ears, his heart rate pulsing much too loud for his liking.

 

He gulped and sucked a deep breath through his nose quietly. He opened his mouth, paused, but he asked the honest question he needed an answer for despite the risks.

 

“What do you mean so what?”

 

“Ask me for a date, proper.”

 

No sign of fear in her eyes. How could there be? His rejection of her advances more expected than not. He wondered why she kept trying.

 

“Excuse me?” His voice raised an octave in something akin to bewilderment. _But why?_ He questioned himself. Why did she produce this innervation when many others requested with no effect?

 

“Do it.  I always ask and you dodge. Well, minus the one time you asked, and I was engaged,” she sighed as she looked down at her feet.

 

“Coward,” she mumbled under her breath.

 

She stuck her chin back up and out, arms folded.

 

“Well, you betrayed your own self now, make up for it.”

 

“I understand that some people flirt and do not _date,_ ” A weak attempt, he grimaced to himself as he searched for an uncruel way out. He once again found himself lacking.

 

“Sure, if that is how you want it.” Her stare held his, and he noticed his ability to read it slipping from his grasp.

 

_Did he get out of it after all?_

 

“Back to work then.” She shrugged with a half smile and grabbed her scalpel again.

 

He searched her face for a sign of disappointment or ache. He’d seen it enough to know the lines as such emotions passed across her forehead and mouth. How it caused her top lip to nearly disappear. He watched the changes like flags on a ship, revealing the state and course of the path to tread with her.

 

But she remained steadfast and flat. Lips normal, though she wore that lipstick once again he observed. To a pleasant effect at first thought, but a tinge of shame followed behind. He reflected on his pointing it out once, deflection used by him in minute observation most callous. Compunction too readily a companion in his communications with her continually, not just as of late.  

 

A funny ache in his chest started to burn, like one too many cigarettes sucked down back to back. He did it once again. His vigilance of any reaction from her intense despite any assumptions of disinterest. She could only see his state he hoped, but he was wrong before in her perceptions of his inner mental work.

 

“If you’re going to stare at me and not help, you can just leave.” Her voice betrayed disappointment, but her face remained steady. Her lips normal still. The expected fall hidden if it existed at all. When it did not transpire, he could not wrap his discernment around if it hurt more or less.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I’m sorry... perhaps I should.”

 

The room suddenly devoid of oxygen, stifling and like a fetter on his lungs. He quickly disposed of his gloves, rushed through washing up and headed for the exit where he paused, giving a side glance as his hand snagged the door handle.

 

He spied her watching him leave and contemplated her face. _Bemusement?_ Confounded once again with no room in his lungs for the emotions, he rushed out into the hall.  

 

Panic looked ugly on him with all certainty and he strode relentlessly down the vacant corridor. _Air, smokes, case._ He repeated it to no alleviation of the symptoms. His lungs filled and yet his chest grew empty. He stopped in his tracks, closing his eyes as he leaned hard against the wall. But something washed over as he ceased his struggling. The past, his and hers, woven into a disquieting present. The previous logic irretrievable in his thoughts. Molly materialised there, as she consistently does, bathed in light and quiet and he discerned his ache ease as usual when she appeared.

 

She reached out, taking his hand in hers. He stared down at it, noting how real it seemed, its cool touch calming to his mind’s burning. He recalled that he practised such a sensation in his ruminations and yet this seemed distinct. His heart slowed, relaxing under her caress in his mind palace, or so he assumed. Beyond the scope that he could imagine, she stepped forward pressing into him and it shocked his senses to his reality.

 

He indeed saw her, perceived her but it was no vision but flesh and blood holding tight against him. He questioned silently as he cast view down to meet hers. Her soft, slight, and reassuring smile answered.

 

Running away and deflecting still options, but their influence diminished by her nearness. Her hand slipped up to his chest, resting lightly as her thumb caressed small circles. The ache returned under his ribcage, but he now knew the cause of the symptom.

 

“I want to kiss you,” he murmured, authority finally given to that part of his psyche he suppressed. The honesty astounding him and her both as he saw a run of emotions sweep across her face.

 

Her eyes fell to his lips and then to his chest. “More than my cheek?” she whispered with a catch in her throat.

 

He reached up and lifted her chin to seek her wide brown eyes once more. He sought them before with intent, letting her tell him everything in them only for him to ignore and store it away. But no more.

 

He nodded, words leaving his consciousness like water through a sieve. Dryness invaded and turned his tongue thick. Every curve shifted up against him as her lips found his, quenching his thirst. Greedily he desired more from her and she parted her mouth generously. He knew not where his hands landed, and her hand snaked up to grip his jaw and then his neck to find his scalp in the most delightful way. An elicited moan from both also provided a grounding to both that they were in the hallway of St. Barts still. His lack of courage to kiss her in the first place resulted in the same gutlessness to end it. But her control, ceaselessly astounding to him, allowed her to release the kiss and to step back, though she kept his hand in hers. With a squeeze and a grin along with an all too enticing lip bite, words crept to his consciousness and to his tongue.

 

“So, dinner then?” he drawled, licking his own lips as he held her gaze.

 

Her turn to only nod as he moved away from the wall and laced his fingers in hers.

 

She shook her head as he tried to lead her down the hall. “Wait... I have work--” she protested, half-heartedly pulling him back.

 

“Don’t we all? Text your supervisor. You’re quite afflicted,” he grinned.  

 

“It would appear so. Let me get my bag from my locker though and maybe by my place to change?” The look in her eyes spoke of more than dinner, causing him to pause.

 

“Wait, we are going to an actual dinner first, am I correct?” he pondered out loud.

 

She furrowed her brow but grinned, “Unless you meant it as a euphemism...yes, let’s try to be proper once in our lives, perhaps?”

 

In the cab on the way to her place, a single lingering glance between darkened eyes divulged to both that their first dinner as a couple apparently would be takeout delivered.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from lyric from One Heart by Myk 
> 
> thanks to Mouse9 for the encouragement
> 
> shout out to Prowritingaid for that damn close repeats report making me a better writer every time. 
> 
> This originally came from a 5 sentence prompt on tumblr but I expanded it. 
> 
> No thank you to Sherlock for wanting to change the story for me but naw son, I won.


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